The Faithful Heart
The Coolidge is thrilled to host the return of the Alloy Orchestra.
An early film from pioneering French avant-garde filmmaker Jean Epstein, The Faithful Heart helped to put him on the map as one of the key members of the “pre-war French school” of filmmakers. Gina Marès stars as a barmaid in love with a local dockworker (Léon Mathot), much to the dismay of her overbearing family and her aggressive boyfriend (Edmond van Daële). Already an established film theorist, Epstein strove to make "a melodrama so stripped of all the conventions ordinarily attached to the genre, so sober, so simple, that it might approach the nobility and excellence of tragedy."
About the Alloy Orchestra
Alloy Orchestra is a three man musical ensemble, writing and performing live accompaniment to classic silent films. Working with an outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects, they thrash and grind soulful music from unlikely sources.
Performing at prestigious film festivals and cultural centers in the US and abroad (The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, The Telluride Film Festival, The Louvre, Lincoln Center, The Academy of Motion Pictures, the National Gallery of Art and others), Alloy has helped revive some of the great masterpieces of the silent era.
An unusual combination of found percussion and state-of-the-art electronics gives the Orchestra the ability to create any sound imaginable.
Utilizing their famous “rack of junk” and electronic synthesizers, the group generates beautiful music in a spectacular variety of styles. They can conjure up a French symphony or a simple German bar band of the 20’s. The group can make the audience think it is being attacked by tigers, contacted by radio signals from Mars or swept up in the Russian Revolution.
